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Mechanochemical reactions utilise mechanical force to achieve chemical transformation and can be conducted in a number of ways, including grinding/milling processes, sonication or by stretching individual molecules on the tip of an atomic force microscope. Because they can be both solvent-free and less energy consuming than standard solution reactions, mechanochemical transformations are rapidly becoming popular as a sustainable alternative to conventional solution-based and solvothermal chemical processes which are inherently wasteful of solvent and energy in both the laboratory and industry.

The growing interest in mechanochemical processes has in the past decade provided exciting developments in the areas of supramolecular (cocrystals, capsules, catenanes, rotaxanes), pharmaceutical (screening new solid drug forms, pharmaceutical cocrystals), materials (porous metal-organic frameworks, luminescent sensors) and organic (solvent-free synthesis, solid-state deracemisation, organic cages) chemistry and catalysis (stereoselective organocatalysts, metalorganic solvent-free catalysis, catalytic solid-state photoreactions). These developments indicate mechanochemistry will play a key role in future clean and sustainable technologies, ranging from "green" synthesis to mineral manufacturing and nanoparticle synthesis.

However, such development requires improving the understanding of underlying principles of mechanochemistry and extensive communication between researchers in its different areas (e.g. organic, inorganic, physical, industrial, academic). The 170th Faraday Discussions will facilitate further development of mechanochemistry in terms of applications, definitions and mechanistic understanding, and explore how its innovative, clean and energy-efficient applications could form the basis of new paradigm for academic and industrial chemistry.

Aims

This meeting aims to bring together experts in milling mechanochemistry and sonochemistry, as well as researchers in organic synthesis, metal-organic and inorganic materials chemistry, physical chemists, pharmaceutical scientists and "green" chemistry researchers. 

Format

The Faraday Division have been organising high impact Faraday Discussions in rapidly developing areas of physical chemistry and its interfaces with other scientific disciplines for over 100 years. 

Faraday Discussions have a special format where research papers written by the speakers are distributed to all participants before the meeting, and most of the meeting is devoted to discussing the papers. Everyone contributes to the discussion - including presenting their own relevant research. The research papers and a record of the discussion are published in the journal Faraday Discussions.

Themes

• the mechanochemistry of organic molecules, soft materials and pharmaceuticals
• the mechanochemistry of inorganic compounds and coordination-based materials
• sonication and macromolecular mechanochemistry
• the mechanistic understanding, catalysis and scaling up of mechanochemistry

Confirmed invited speakers at Faraday Discussion 170 include:

Stephen Craig 
Duke University

William Jones (Introductory Lecturer)
University of Cambridge

Leonard MacGillivray 
University of Iowa

Lucia Maini 
University of Bologna

Vladimir Sepélak 
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Achim Stolle 
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

Kenneth Suslick (Closing Remarks)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Laszlo Takacs 
University of Maryland